Marketing Brew has an interesting article today about a survey released by the World Federation of Advertisers and Ebiquity. The survey of 43 advertisers representing $44B in advertising spend indicates that 40% expect their 2023 spend to remain the same, while 50% of the remainder expect their spend to increase and 50% expect theirs to decrease.
I'll admit, clearly these 43 advertisers each averaging a cool $1B in spend are not your typical local media advertisers, so this may not be a canary in the coal mine. But, there may be a few nuggets we can glean as it relates to macro-strategies applied more locally.
Nugget No. 1- PERFORMANCE MATTERS. ~30% will increase performance advertising and ~20% will increase brand advertising. No surprise that more are looking for performance vs. branding, especially with the economy tightening up a bit. The good news is that digital has a place in both and can do well, publishers just need to make sure to get that right so the ROI is there.
Nugget No. 2- TRADITIONAL TAKES THE HIT. 63% will decrease print spend, 59% will decrease linear TV spend, and 46% will decrease radio spend. That's a little ray of light for radio, but overall still a hit. None of this should surprise anyone, though.
Nugget No. 3- LOCAL MEDIA HAS OPTIONS. 67% will increase CTV spend, and ~50% will increase spend on paid social and retail media. That's my "2 Out of 3 Ain't Bad."
- 1) CTV. Local TV media companies have this inventory as part of their O&O, though like everyone else they're struggling to get as much of it as they need. Newspaper and radio media companies don't have this endemic to their sites (typically), but there are plenty of DSPs who can provide access to this inventory. Most recently I've worked with the folks at
Simpli.fi
and
Basis Technologies
to get CTV for our advertisers. The folks at
The E.W. Scripps Company
have some great inventory they can provide, as well. My friend
Tom Sly
can put you in touch with the team if you'd like. If you need an intro to any of these partners, ping me and I can help out.
- 2) Paid Social. This is where local media companies should be able to shine. Although the scale may not be there, there is great potential in "co-branded" advertising on local media companies' O&O social accounts- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and many others are ripe for this. Don't forget, though, that the FTC requires proper disclosure of any #ads placed on social media feeds. Your advertisers and sellers will push back, but hold firm. It's not worth the hassle of getting your station's/paper's social account shut down for 30-60-90 days (trust me, I've seen it happen!). Besides co-branded opportunities, and especially if you're looking for scale, straight-up paid social has plenty of opportunity, and the scale is clearly there. Local media companies can do that themselves, or they can work with great partners. Two I've enjoyed working with over the years are
AdCellerant
and
Dream Local Digital
. Beasley Media Group just acquired
Guarantee Digital
who also can help. As above, if you need an intro to any of these partners, ping me and I'd be happy to help out.
- 3)Retail Media. By definition, local media companies don't have/aren't retail media. But, that doesn't mean they don't have access to it. If local media advertisers are looking for retail media, local media companies need to understand that they CAN sell that, and local media advertisers are looking to work with fewer partners, not more (according to
Gordon Borrell
and
Corey Elliott
and
Borrell Associates Inc.
's Local Advertiser Survey). If your local media company isn't working directly with retail media outlets (think Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, etc.) there are plenty of partners in the local media space that can help.
Local Media Association
and
Local Media Consortium
members should spend time with the partners/providers in both of those organizations to learn more about what they have to offer. Again, if you need an intro, LMK and I'd be glad to help out. There are also plenty of agencies that work with retail partners and can guide local media companies as well.
- If your media company isn't skilled in providing lower funnel, direct response, performance advertising, you need to get there ASAP or work with a partner who can help you to do so. You may know upper funnel, branding advertising better, and while that's also an opportunity, according to this survey performance advertising is a 1.5:1 ratio with branding. That 50% difference is significant when it comes to how much is being spent in local media (
Borrell Associates Inc.
pegs local digital spend at $92.8B in 2022, which is 66% of all local ad spend, growing to 72% of all local spending by 2025).
- If your media company is relying on traditional media revenue and not driving significant digital revenue, you have a problem. Don't shoot the messenger! The survey indicates decreased spending on traditional media in 2023. The medium with the smallest decrease is radio at nearly 50%. TV is nearly 60%, and newspaper is over 60%!
- If your media company is relying on O&O banner ads, video/audio preroll, and e-mail marketing, you don't have a complete digital product set. You should be offering all of those, for sure. BUT if you're not offering CTV and paid social, you're behind the game. Reach out to one of the partners referenced above and get going with them. While you're at it, if you're not offering business presence (website, reputation management, etc.), SEO/SEM, and branded content, you need to get going on those also. Now. And, while it may not be huge right now, don't sleep on retail media. The same amount of advertisers reporting they would be increasing their paid social spend reported they would also be increasing their retail media spend. The inventory is out there, but you likely need a partner to guide you through the process, and while there's an expense associated with that, a smaller margin on revenue you could capture is much better than 100% margin on revenue you're not capturing.
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let's discuss.
Since 2009 Todd has been in the local media space focused primarily on driving digital revenue growth, innovating digital ad products, and navigating dual transformation. 2/3 of that time has been on the publisher side, the other on the partner side.
